


At the end of the day

by internationalprincess



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-10
Updated: 2002-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internationalprincess/pseuds/internationalprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Donna got a job offer tonight..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the end of the day

She’s been sitting at the bar in the restaurant by herself for forty-five minutes now. And she herself was fifteen minutes late in arriving. Her mood is turning black as a result. She loathes waiting in bars by herself. It makes her feel abandoned, desperate. She hates having to deflect questioning looks from men.

When he pushes through the glass door and ambles over to her he looks exhausted and distracted. She’s wishing she’d told him to forget it when he had called her earlier, wishing she was at home right now with a glass of merlot and her duvet. Wishing she was wrapped up on her couch watching bad TV, instead of trying to feel her way in this new and difficult space.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he says, leaning in to kiss her briefly.

She slides off the barstool to her feet, slings her purse over her shoulder, and follows the waiter to the table.

He grasps her hand briefly as they glance at the menu. She can’t concentrate. She orders the fish, and wishes she didn’t feel so disappointed already.

“Bad day?” she asks, knowing in advance that the answer won’t satisfy her.

“It...uh...I can’t really talk about it.”

There are dark shadows under his eyes, worry lines across his forehead. He gives her a smile that doesn’t quite succeed.

“What about you? How was your day?”

How was her day? She wants to laugh. It ought to be funny. They sound like a suburban married couple, or worse, like strangers on a blind date.

She wants to be angry. To slice at him with her barbed tongue. Tell him that this is no way to start a ‘relationship’.

But she knows she has painted herself into a corner. She has already boasted to him that she is not ‘other people’. She has waived her rights to behave like an ordinary girlfriend. One who doesn’t understand the pressures of his job. One who could stomp her foot and demand he pay more attention to her. She thinks back to that first night on his steps.

\- ‘Was it a matter of national security?  
\- ‘No.’  
\- ‘Would you tell me if it was a matter of national security?’  
\- ‘No.’  
\- ‘Okay...’

He keeps glancing at his watch, at the door. His mind is not even on his meal, let alone her.

She tries to school her voice to stay neutral.

“J? Seems like there are things on your mind...maybe we could do this another time. You could give me a call this weekend.”

His eyes flick up to hers. His face is immediately apologetic.

“God, Amy. I’m sorry. I...we had some things happen today, and I can’t talk about it. But that’s not what I...”

There is a long pause. She won’t interrupt his thinking. She waits, runs her fingers along the stiff edge of her napkin in her lap. There’s a sinking feeling in her stomach and she castigates herself for already being so attached to this man. For fearing the worst straight away. She wonders where their honeymoon period went. The three weeks you are supposed to get at the start, where the most important disagreements you have are over whether he likes to eat the pickles you pull out of a Big Mac, and who the best character is on Sesame Street.

He has abandoned his entrée and is leaning back in his chair.

“Donna got a job offer tonight...”

The blood begins to pound in her temples. No sentence that starts with Donna’s name is going to end well, she thinks. She wishes momentarily that Josh’s assistant didn’t make her feel so...frumpy. Donna, who is always flawless, and thin, and blonde. Who never has a hair out of place. Who owns a piece of Josh’s heart that no-one else will ever be able to get at. Donna, who put him back together after the shooting.

"...some internet fly-by-night. And it’s not as if she’s even qualified to..."

She laughs humourlessly.

“Come on, J. Donna’s made it possible for you to run the country for three years. She may not be credentialed on paper, but I’d say she was qualified to do just about anything she put her mind to.”

He looks at her glumly and doesn’t respond.

She presses on, figuring it is best to get this out in the open. Like pulling a Band-Aid off quickly. “Do you think she’ll take it?”

“I...I don’t know. I didn’t think so, but then tonight when...when the thing happened...and I looked at her and I realized she doesn’t enjoy it so much anymore. She used to...everything about the White House she got a kick out of...and what with everything lately, she...she’s not happy anymore. So yeah, I think she might leave me...”

The administration, she automatically corrects in her head. You mean she might leave the *administration*. But that isn’t what Josh means and she knows it. She rehears their conversation from a few weeks ago over and over.

\- ‘Are you dating your assistant?’  
\- ‘No.’  
\- ‘I heard you might be.’  
\- ‘I’m not.’  
\- ‘She’s cute...’  
\- ‘She’s my assistant.’

And what if she wasn’t?

One hand is already slipping down beside her to grab at her bag. Fight or flight. She struggles against the irrational, shrewish reaction she knows she is capable of. He is still talking. He takes her other hand across the table, gently turns it over and studies it while he talks, drawing soft lines on her palm. Anchoring her to the conversation, to him.

“It was just that everything was suddenly coming together, y’know? We rode out the hearings. We parked the State of the Union. Our numbers are rebounding. I met you...”

This time his smile reaches his eyes. She feels herself starting to thaw.

“...And I thought we were over the worst. I guess I haven’t been looking over my shoulder to make sure Donna was keeping up. I don’t think she’s come through this as easily as some of us. And now, if she goes? I don’t think I can do this job without her.”

He looks down at their hands again, mumbles, “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“You should tell her that.”

“What?”

“That you value her. That you couldn’t do the job without her.”

“She knows that.”

“You should tell her anyway.”

She feels magnanimous. He does love Donna, she realizes, but he loves her for holding him together so that he doesn’t fly apart into a million different pieces. He loves her capability. It’s not the same thing at all.

“You think?”

“It might be all she’s waiting to hear.”

She watches him turn this idea over in his head. He nods slightly, more to himself than to her. He glances at their abandoned meals.

“You wanna get out of here?”

He’s already starting to rise, pulling cash from his battered wallet and throwing it on the table.

“What did you have in mind?”

The weight has lifted from him a little. He’s grinning at her with his misbehaving smile as he retorts, “You, me, necking in the back of a taxi like teenagers...”

He digs around in his backpack as they make their way out into the night, tugs something out, and hands it to her.

“A congressional face book? I gotta tell you Josh; this is not a way to impress the girls.”

“I can’t tell the difference between Cooper and Hooper...quiz me.”

And she realizes it’s his way of saying sorry, of drawing her into his world. And as they stand on the side of the road waiting for a cab, while she makes him recite home state details and describe Hooper’s terrible toupee, she decides she doesn’t mind sharing him with Donna, so long as he comes home to her at the end of the day.


End file.
